


Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

by thermodynamicActivity (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: The Collegestuck 'Verse [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Humanstuck, Multi, modernish anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 20:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 11,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4800740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/thermodynamicActivity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are Dolores, Dolo to your friends, Lola to your family, and contrary to popular belief, you were young once. You had dreams, ideals, and plans. At some point, while you were in your twenties, you started babysitting the child who lived across the street, whose mother was gone, and whose father was always working. You came to love this boy more than life itself. And as he grew up, you were torn between being proud of him, and being terrified for him and his friends. The world is seldom kind to those who wish to change it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Definitions (1966 to 1982)

**Author's Note:**

> While I was writing this fic, I decided to give the ancestors human names, just because trying to write it the other way was getting unwieldy, redundant, and just a general pain in the ass. It should be easy to figure out who's who based on context, but just in case -  
> Dolores Martineau = The Dolorosa  
> Krishna Vandayar = The Signless  
> Masae Sakamoto = Mindfang  
> Yekaterina "Cat" Levin = The Disciple  
> Simon Cao = The Psiioniic  
> Marisol Perez = Neophyte Redglare
> 
> I may or may not write a continuation of this, I'm not quite sure.  
> Oh yeah, the latter parts of this fic technically run concurrently with "we must love one another or die".

Your name is Dolores Martineau, you are twenty-six, and you are living back at home until you finish graduate school. Your father does not ask you to pay much in rent, so long as you shop, cook, clean, and keep an eye on your siblings. Basically, what you'd been doing before you left for college.

Your brothers and sister are at the ages - 16, 15, and 14, respectively - where they can mostly look out for themselves. They concern you, nevertheless, particularly Jean-Claude, whom trouble seems to  _find._

“Love you!” Sebastien and Jean shout in Kreyol, on their way out the door, as they drag little Fabiola after them.

You don't have time to return their words before they're already halfway down the block. You shake your head at their haste. And in an idle moment of introspection, as you wash out the breakfast dishes, you wonder what love, and loving, really constitutes.

When you were ten, in 1966, you thought love was a matter of fact. The way your father always slipped you a few pieces of change to buy candy on your way home from school. The way your older brother carried you to the hospital after you fell out of a tree and broke your leg. The way your mother kissed you on the forehead each morning.

(Before that draft letter came, before your brother Leandre became an unfortunate statistic, before your mother jittered apart like a broken windup toy, unable to get out of bed, before your father had no choice but to send her away.)

When you were fourteen, you thought love was a responsibility. A responsibility to visit your mother at least once a month. A responsibility to act in her stead, to do the laundry, to clean the house, to cook the dinner, to care for your brothers and sister, to tell them bedtime stories, to hold everything together. A duty to apply all that she’d taught you, before she got sick, so that when she was able to come home, nothing would be out of place.

(And if she could not always remember you after so many rounds of electroconvulsive therapy, if she - the way your father worried during whispered conversations with Matante Martine - ended up staying in that place forever, it was the principle of the thing.)

When you were seventeen, you thought love was like sunshine, something to be shared, something to bask in, beautiful and resplendent. You thought love could be the only weapon against the turning gears of the war machine. Love could be ammunition, but unlike other types, it would leave no fatalities.

(There could be no higher distinction than sharing these sensations, than meeting another, or even several others, and creating new meanings, with words, and mouths, and heat, and bodies. Men had words for girls like you, who loved so freely, who seemed to only love women, but you did not care.)

When you were twenty, with your Angela Davis afro, you decided that such liberal interpretations presented a distraction from both revolutionary ideology and academic pursuits. Besides, real love could not exist within an oppressive system that choked it like a weed. It could only flourish when the marginalized were not only made equal, but were liberated.

(Instead of studying for your midterm exams, you and those of your ilk took to the streets, clamoring for rights you had been denied for so long. Being arrested did nothing to dissuade your zeal. You kept protesting.)

When you were twenty-one, the apocalypse began outside your SOCY 431 class, with a shooting pain in your abdomen, and a trickle of blood running down your leg. It ended with you in Lenox Hill Hospital, floating up to your eyeballs in painkillers, while a male doctor stuffed you full of jargon like “miscarriage”, “dangerous hemorrhaging”, and “emergency hysterectomy”. Post-operation, you lay there on the hospital bed with your mouth half-open, and wondered if your mother had felt this way when the Army men handed her that folded flag. 

(You weren’t upset about the miscarriage, considering the fact that the pregnancy had been completely unplanned. As you sat up gingerly, and let your hand drift down to your abdomen, you thought of your mother again. She bore five children. You would bear none.)

When you were twenty-two, love seemed altogether like a crock of shit, a word thrown around like confetti on New Year’s. While your more radical comrades decried women who stayed with men, who chose to procreate with them, you buried yourself in graduate level work. You could not tell them what was going on. You could not tell your father. You could not tell your brothers. Your sister would be too young to understand. Most of all, you _would not_ tell a shrink, and end up electrocuted into a stupor.

(You continued to act as if everything was business as usual. You went to class and made decent grades. You listened to upperclassmen complain about their theses. You swallowed the faint melancholy like a pill and spent a great deal of energy preventing it from coming back up.)

When you were twenty-three, after two glasses of wine, you lay on your bed, teetering on the edge between laughing and sobbing, remarking that your parents must have been clairvoyant to name you Dolores. And then, to ring in the second day of 1980, even though your girlfriend of the month broke up with you behind it, you dropped all your spring classes. You had reached your limit.

(You visited your mother at Creedmoor and she asked you how high school was going. You implored your father to retire before he did himself an injury, to no avail. You briefly worked as a front desk receptionist at a nursing home. You informed your younger brothers - after listening to the reverence with which they discussed the old exploits of the Jolly Stompers - that if they even _thought_ about ever joining one of the gangs currently running around Bed-Stuy, you’d knock them clear to Connecticut.)

When you were twenty-four, you concluded that you had not the slightest idea what love actually meant. Further, you realized that the older you got, the less you actually knew.

(You wonder if you’ll know anything by the time you reach thirty. It doesn't seem as far away as it used to.)

Now, at twenty-six, you try not to think so much about the past, or the future. One is depressing, the other is terrifying.

Since you have no classes today, you divide your time between sewing, watching television, and scanning the paper for job postings. When Fabiola comes home, you try to help her with her math homework, though you haven't done algebra in years. When Sebastien comes home, you send him out to buy a bag of rice, and reheat dinner for him. When Jean fails to come home, you call up his partner in crime, and find out that he's playing poker with his lunch money. Lunch money you gave him. Sebastien later swears on his skates that he heard your yelling from four avenues and two streets away. Dogs barked, startled. You scared all the pigeons clear to Williamsburg, to hear him tell it.

After your father comes home, you serve him his tea the way he likes it, and leave out certain parts of the the last few hours when he asks you how your day went. You check your watch and note that there's still enough time for you to go to the library and get an hour or two of studying done, if you move fast. You grab your purse, and put on your shoes.

But right when you're finished locking the door behind you, someone taps you on the shoulder. No words of greeting. No introduction. No nothing.

You check your pocket for your wallet to make sure it's still there. House keys in your fist, the sharp ends jutting out of the spaces between each of your fingers, you wheel around to face your assailant, and start sizing him up. 

He’s South Asian, around your height, wiry, sporting a moustache and a trimmed beard, wearing a work uniform, and not carrying a weapon, as far as you can tell. There's a reasonable chance he's harmless, but you’re not the sort to take chances, particularly since you are a woman alone, it'll be getting dark soon, and this is not the safest neighborhood. 

“Excuse me?” you ask through gritted teeth.

The man raises his hands defensively, and takes two steps back. So what? You remain wary.

You glare at him. “What do you want?”

“You’re Mr. Martineau’s daugher, right?” he asks, voice quavering.

In spite of your misgivings, you lower your keys, and cross your arms over your chest.

“Why do you ask?”

He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I… I, uh…”

You have no time for this.

“Yes?”

“I, well…” He pauses to take a few rapid breaths. “I was wondering if you’d mind babysitting my son. The Chavers recommended you, and I really need to get to work. I live over at 973.”

He points to a two-family house across the street, continuing to shake. Maybe you should have come off a tad less homicidal.

_Way to make a first impression, Dolo._

After a few seconds thought, you agree to his request, but ask him to wait just a minute so you can grab your books from inside your father’s house. There's something you want to test. You dial ninety year old Winnifred Chavers, whose grandkids you last watched during your first year of college, and ask her if she had anything to with why some man is asking you to babysit his kid.

Being something of a motormouth, of course she did. Go figure.

His story checks out.

You tack a note to the door that you're going to be babysitting for a few hours, and then go outside to tell the guy you scared half to death that you’ll be happy to watch his child.

The man introduces himself as Ajay Vandayar, and his son as Krishna, the latter of whom is exceedingly shy and hides behind his father’s legs the whole time. Mr. Vandayar assures you that he'll pay you a reasonable amount of money for your service.

You don’t get out of class until 3 when you have it, and this guy works from 5 to 1, which makes the whole thing a perfect arrangement, as you learn in the weeks to come.

You crouch down to Krishna's level, and introduce yourself as "Miss Martineau." He does nothing but stare at you for a good minute or two.

Well, this is going to be interesting, you think to yourself. Babysitting a child who never talks.


	2. Progression (1984 to 1989)

One of the many things you learn about Krishna Vandayar, aside from the fact that he’s read all the age appropriate books in his house, and that he gets bored very easily, is that he never stops asking questions once he gets started.

_(“Excuse me, Ms. Martineau?”_

_“Yes?”_

_“Why d’you always wear that hat for?”_

_“It’s part of my culture.”_

_He is unsatisfied with this response. He wants to know more._

_Consequently, a single-sentence answer turns into a thirty minute explanation about how Haitians adopted certain articles of clothing from parts of Africa, which then leads to an explanation of where Haiti and Africa even are. After he informs you that he’s Nigerian on his mother’s side, you point that place out on a map for him as well. After all is said and done, you are pretty sure you’ve done nothing but confuse him.)_

Then, you leave for a bathroom break, and come back to find him staring at the cover of one of your old textbooks, his face screwed up in concentration.

 _“So… so…”_ he begins.

You sit down next to him, and mentally read the title -  _Sociology of Community._

Then it hits you that he’s trying to sound it out, which leaves you a little shocked. You put your hand on his shoulder.

“You’re doing fine,” you say to him. “Keep going.”

He does. And once you inform him that the c in sociology is pronounced like an s, he gets through the remainder of the title like a breeze. You give him a high five.

“Excellent!”

Of course, Krishna leaves no stone unturned.

“What’s that mean?” he asks, pointing to the title.

As much as you’d like to explain some approximation of SOCY 559 to a toddler, you’re almost certain that’s beyond your, or his, ability.

He tires you out, this one, more than any of your siblings ever did. You’re certain that if you left a room while he was talking, and came back five minutes later, he’d still be talking. 

_(“What’s that?” he asks you, as you two stroll down Bedford Avenue, past the tarnished statue of Ulysses Grant. He stops to point at it._

_“That’s a statue of General Grant,” you reply._

_“Who’s he?”_

_“He fought in the Civil War, and he helped win, so he got a statue.”_

_You can practically hear the question before he asks it._

_“What’s the Civil War?”)_

Around seven every night, you cook him dinner, in a supreme act of irony. All that protesting you did in college and you’re basically a housewife. At least you get paid.

You look over what little homework he has, to make sure it’s complete. You do your best to answer every question he has for you, even when you’re all questioned out. 

He refuses to sleep alone unless his father is home, so you carry him into his room, sit down on his small bed, right next to him, and tell stories until he falls asleep. These are the same stories your mother used to tell you, as she tucked the covers around you, these are the same stories you told Jean, Sebastian, and Fabiola, and sometimes you can’t help but slip into Kreyol during the retelling.

Every so often, Krishna remains awake enough to ask what you’re saying.

“I forgot myself for a second,” you tell him.

“Oh. Okay.”

You switch back to the language he can actually understand.

Once you’re finished, yawns, and turns over. “G’night, mama.”

Your breath hitches in your throat. You stroke his face, and kiss his forehead.

“Good night, Krishna.”

At some point, you teach Krishna how to count in Kreyol on pure impulse, and because it’ll occupy him for a while. He attempts to teach you how to count to ten in Tamil, to abysmal results. You’re a better teacher than a student by far. That's what you tell him to cheer him up, when he takes your ineptitude personally.

"I've got too much in my head, already."

At least all the information clogging your finally mind pays off this year.

You successfully defend your Master’s thesis and earn a piece of paper attesting to your ability to sit through a million years of post-secondary education without taking two of your pens and stabbing your eyes out Oedipus Rex style.

The seasons change. Your brother finishes high school, and gets a job packing crates for a textile factory. You jokingly ask him to steal you some of the nicer fabric as it passes. Oh, the outfits you could make, with the right patterns, using the old Singer machine Matante Martine gave to you.

Jean points out that he doesn't know the first thing about sewing and would be equally likely to get you burlap as he would to get you tulle.

A week or so later, Krishna brings home a picture he made in art class, one of his family.

Of course, there’s his father, whose moustache looks as if it’s eating the poor man’s face. Then, there’s Krishna, with a giant crayon grin. Then, there’s his mother, whom he only knows from pictures. She left a long time ago, and it never seemed proper to ask why.

Then, there’s you. Ms. Martineau. You’re a little surprised to be there, with a little red smile, and your hair tied back in its usual wrap. 

With Mr. Vandayar’s permission, you take the picture home, and hang it up on the wall of the room you share with Fabiola. She thinks it's the cutest thing.

Your younger brothers offer their usual mocking commentary when you unveil it; it's not as if you expect any less from them.

"Wow, he got your face perfect and everything," Jean remarks.

"And what do you mean by that?"

"You're wearing that lipstick that Papa hates."

Sebastian scrutinizes it even further. "Eyebrows aren't thick enough, though. And Lola looks way too happy."

"Definitely too happy. Not yelling, either."

"How would you even draw someone yelling?"

"Put a speech bubble next to her mouth and have her say something like, _you should be ashamed of yourself, Jean-Claude."_

 _"There are people starving in other countries, but you can't finish your spinach?"_ Sebastien asks in falsetto, trying his hardest not to laugh.

However, Jean will not be outdone so easily.

_"I'll cut the cord on that television, if you don't turn it off and go to bed this instant!"_

These two will be the death of you.

"Lord, give me strength," you mutter, leveling your gaze at the ceiling. Unfortunately, this only inspires them further.

_"Shoot, Jean, we forgot one! How could we miss Lola's favorite saying?"_

Even Fabiola laughs at that. 

The next day, Krishna is up to his usual mischief, sneaking spoonfuls of food out of bowls you’re not actively tending to, and thinking of new questions to ask you.

How old are you, Ms. Martineau?”

“Old.”

“How old is old?”

“More than twenty.”

“How much more?”

“How well can you add and subtract, Krish?”

“Real well!”

“Well, I was born in ‘56. How many years are there between 1956 and 1985?”

He takes out his math notebook, and does the computation in careful print, with his head on your shoulder.

“You’re twenty-nine?”

He seems a little shocked at the revelation. You can't tell whether that means you're older or younger than you look.

“I told you I was old,” you grin.

Weeks pass.

Months pass.

Years pass. 

You take a job as a social worker based out of some clinic on Atlantic Avenue, and finally make enough to rent your own apartment, which Fabiola and Matante Martine help you decorate. It's not terribly far from the house you grew up in, but it's yours, and yours alone. You revel in the knowledge that you'll always know where your belongings are, that there will be no one else to move or misplace them. Not unless you decide that you want a someone else, and even then, it's not as if they'll be like Sebastien and Jean, who used to hide your things on purpose.

You can set the terms of your life now.

Krishna calls you no less times a week, just to tell you how things are going.

"Mrs. Harper watches me now, but she's kind of old, so she just sleeps a whole lot. I miss you, Ma-...Ms. Martineau."

He makes Student of the Month. He's going on a field trip to the Museum of Natural History in a week or two. You tell him to take lots of pictures of the dinosaurs. 

True to form, whenever he calls, he talks for hours, but you don't mind. You never have. However, you do pity his father, and what his phone bill must look like at the end of the month. 

You decorate your office with pictures of Krishna; it's amazing how many you've amassed over the last six years. Most of your coworkers assume he's your son, and rarely do you ever correct them. The woman who shares your office has no children. Didn't want any, since she isn't the mothering sort, she informs you. Her name is Elyse Walker, and she's about six years younger than you, still energetic and in her twenties. You two get lunch together, whenever you aren't swamped with clients.

"Your son's adorable, Dolo! What grade is he in?" she asks, seeming genuinely interested.

"Third grade."

"Oh, I have a nephew around his age. It's amazing how fast they grow up."

You glance at your pictures.

"It really is."

The better you get to know her, the more you tell her, and the conversational door swings both ways. She also lives alone. Never married. Went into social work because she wanted to help others, although she had no idea what she was getting into. You didn't either. Your caseloads are overwhelming. So many tragic circumstances, so few resources, a game of musical chairs invented by a sadist. Elyse cries over the situations of some of her clients, and you do your best to comfort her.

"It's just, I thought I'd be able to do more," she confesses. "And I'm so tired."

"We work with what we have. It's all we can do."

You're on good terms with everyone you work with, but Elyse is your favorite. How could she not be? The two of you seeking each other out every morning has become a routine. 

_("So what's Krish up to these days?"_

_"I went to his spelling bee yesterday, and he got fourth place. He's still a little upset about it."_

_"Aw, well, it's not like you can win everything."_

_"He's so earnest, though." you say. "Sometimes I think he's too hard on himself."_

_"He'll probably just grow out of it.")_

The weeks wear on. You probably care too much about your clients. Not enough to make you weep outright, but enough to keep you awake each night. When you were in high school, you used to have nightmares of failure, and fifteen years down the line, you're experiencing variations on the same theme. For every person you help, two more seem to slip through the cracks. This is a race you cannot win.

Sebastien encourages you to take a vacation before you burn yourself out. Instead, you make the trip out to Queens village, and try to talk to your mother's case manager about what else can be done for her. Things have changed so much since 1968. Surely, there must be something.

_("I mean, obviously, there are alternative care plans, but the fact of the matter is, she's been here for a long time."_

_"I'm aware."_

_"And she has regressed a great deal over the years, Ms. Martineau."_

_"I understand."_

_"It would be difficult to imagine her functioning outside of an institution without a great deal of home care." The man with the clipboard taps his pen against it. "We'll keep you posted on her situation, but I do not see it changing all that much.")_

You go home and stare out the window for hours. You listen to Simon and Garfunkel records. Krishna calls late, far past his bedtime, and guiltily, you let the phone ring out. Tonight, you are a paradox, both numb and overwhelmed. Something has to change.

The next morning, you decide to apply to a new job, and much to your shock, are granted an interview. Elyse wishes you the best of luck, even buys you a glass of wine from this restaurant near your workplace.

"I'm going to miss you, Dolo," she says, tongue a little loosened by the alcohol. "You've been amazing to work with, just amazing in general."

"It's not like I've got the position yet. For all we know, nothing will come of it."

But once you get through the interview, you have a strong suspicion that you might be leaving your office behind. You take one last look around, acting as if you're seeing all of it for the first time.

"That's an interesting poster you have there," you say to Elyse, on that drizzly evening.

You hadn't noticed it before, mostly because you kept to your side, but standing here, it's unmistakable. 

The poster is an inverted pink triangle, set against a black background, under which the words "Silence=Death" have been typed in fully capitalized letters. Elyse gazes at you warily for a few moments, a nervous furrow forming between her eyebrows. Pieces fall into place to form a whole that you feel a little stupid for not having seen.

"Yeah, well, I got it a few months ago. I was volunteering down on Christopher Street, and they were just giving them out."

"I'd always meant to get involved, to get back into that activism, but something always came up. Either school, or work, or my family, or..."

"You don't have to apologize."

You feel like you do.

As you accompany her back to her apartment, you two talk further. She tells you how different the Pride March has become over the last few years. You wouldn't know. You haven't gone in more than a decade, you confess. Too many things to do, and no particular reason to go. You'd fallen out of touch with the old college friends you'd marched with in the past. And now, you're not sure you'd want to go anymore. You've witnessed enough desolation. Elyse seems to empathize with that.

You consider pursuing a relationship with her, but ultimately decide against it. You are not ready. She does not handle the rejection well.

So it goes. 

On the last day of the year, you help Krishna finish his project for Language Arts.

Jean-Claude invites you over to ring in the new year, but all you really want to do is drink a bottle of wine, and do a some light reading.

Naturally, it doesn’t hit you that it’s 1988 until you wake up in the afternoon, hungover beyond belief. You stretch, yawn, and look at your calendar.

In a few days, you'll be a guidance counselor all the way uptown.

Despite the hellish commute, you continue to babysit Krishna two or so times a week, though it’s more visiting than babysitting now. Hard to believe this kid is going to be ten soon. It makes you feel old. He doesn’t talk as constantly, but he remains inquisitive about everything. You've grown accustomed to it. It's more of an anomaly when he doesn't have something to ask you.

He’s always excited to see you, always eager for your latest story, though less eager when you tell him that he’ll get no such thing before he finishes his homework. You sit across from him at the kitchen table, doing work of your own, and keeping an occasional eye on him.

Krishna zips through English and French, trudges his way through Science and Math, and then gives up completely halfway through Social Studies, his head cocked to one side in confusion. You put down your pen, and tap him on the shoulder.

“Something the matter?”

He points to a question asking him what Abraham Lincoln signed in order to free all the slaves. You shrug. Aside from the awkward phrasing of the question, he should know the answer to that.

“That’s the Emancipation Proclamation, remember?”

“But the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free  _all_  the slaves.”

You sigh, because he's correct.

“Check your textbook, Krishna.”

He obliges, flipping to the appropriate page, and reading it. His expression remains resolute.

“My textbook is wrong too.”

Your heart and mind urge you to tell him to point out the error to the teacher, who might be able to use the error as a springboard for a more informed lesson. But the facts you know about the educational system, and what it values, advise you to leave the matter alone.

Give the answer they say is correct. Go along to get along.

You shake your head, gently. 

“Just write down the Emancipation Proclamation."

He gawks at you like he can’t believe you.

“But Mama, it’s  _wrong!_ ”

“It’s the answer your teacher and the book are expecting,” you remind him. “You don’t want to argue with the teacher, do you?”

“If he's giving us the wrong answer, then…”

“Would you just listen to me?” you beg him. “Please?”

All of a sudden, you have a headache that has nothing to do with the amount of coffee you’ve drunk today. During moments like these, he reminds you so much of your young self that it hurts. You wonder who he'll be ten years from now. You wonder, and you worry. Something about the look on your face must hit home, because he writes down the "correct" answer without another word.

Weeks later, you and Krishna walk hand in hand down Eastern Parkway, toward the laundromat, and, of course, he's in one of his talkative moods. You try to keep up with the conversation, but he's too excited to speak at a normal speed. Keeping an eye on traffic, you mentally review what else you need to do this week. You need to pay your rent. You need to clean your apartment. You need to prepare for that faculty meeting. You need to remember to sleep.

There’s never enough time for anything.

And then, Krishna calling you again.

“May I get ice cream?” he asks, tugging on your sleeve, and pointing to the truck at the corner. 

You try to push the rolling cart full of clothes as if you haven’t heard him, but he can be persistent when he wants to. He pouts at you, puts his hands on his hips, and stands directly in front of your shopping cart. If you loved him less, you'd call him downright stubborn, among other things.

“Please?”

"You'll rot your teeth, dear. Didn't you have a chocolate bar the day before yesterday?"

“But I got a sticker on my math test,” he points out, rummaging through his schoolbag until he finds the paper, which he holds up for you to see. “Long division with decimals!”

You glance it over, smiling, in spite of yourself, at the 95. What a smart boy. You wrap your arms around his waist, pick him up - good lord, he's gotten heavy - and plant a kiss on his cheek. He looks around, and sheepishly wipes it away.

He’s getting too old for that, you suppose, a bit wistfully. 

Then, against all better judgment, you slip him fifty cents for a cup of vanilla ice cream. As an afterthought, you give him two more dollars for a root beer float. It’s nice to treat yourself, even if the calories are going straight to your hips. 

He hands you the root beer float with something like awe that an ice cream could be so big.

The two of you sit down on a bench across the street from the laundromat.

“Will you share with me?”

“When do I not?”

He ends up drinking most of it, because apparently it is the most delicious thing he's ever tasted. Sometimes you do spoil him. It's never enough to turn him ungrateful, but it is enough for him to down a great deal of your root beer float.

To his credit, he's guilty when he realizes what he's done, and digs through his pockets until he comes up with two dollars in change, which holds up for you to see. 

"I'll get you another one, I promise!" 

You thank him, and politely refuse his offer, as much as you appreciate it.

"Consider this a reward for your achievements," you assure him. "But we may need some of those quarters for the laundry machine, come to think of it."

He deposits all his change into your hands.

"Okay."

On your way back, you drop your wallet in the train station as you search for subway tokens. Its contents scatter, and you scramble to round them all up, with Krishna's help. Once you're sure you've managed to relocate everything in it, and return it to its rightful place, Krishna holds up a small, folded photograph, one you'd stuffed in a sleeve behind your driver's license. He unfolds it and scrutinizes it. 

”Who’s the lady in the picture?” he wants to know. "I've never seen her."

He's been introduced to pretty much all of your family, and most of your friends, but not her. 

He hands the photograph back to you, and you look it over. The two of you had been dancing together, at some kind of social event, when the photographer snapped the picture. You can almost hear the music, even over the din of arriving and departing trains.

“That’s..." You pocket the picture carefully. "She's a very good friend of mine."

Krishna nods and smiles. “What’s her name?”

You could chide him for asking so many questions, but you don't. You never do. You probably never will.  

“Elyse." Though you hadn't parted on the best of terms in the end, you cannot speak her name without smiling a little.

“Can I meet her?”

“If she has the time, maybe. She tends to be busy."

You tuck Krishna's shirt in, and usher him onto the C train, positioning him near a pole so that he doesn't topple over. You glance at Krishna. He has ice cream on his face, which you wipe away with your sleeve.

Honestly, you have no idea how Mr. Vandayar would react to your proclivities, were he to find out about them.

It's not something you're willing to test out. You stand to lose too much if he reacts badly.


	3. Divisions (1989)

While you’re doing laundry for this week, Krishna asks you if he can go to the park, which is in full view of the building’s window. You tell him to stay where you can see him. You’re not particularly fond of the moments where he’s not within arms reach of you, but the park seems benign enough. While you wait for your clothes to wash, you watch him try to, as he might put it, “swing all the way up to the sky!”

His sole ambition is managing to touch an airplane. You’re not holding your breath for the day that happens. He has been trying to do this for a few years now.

Unsurprisingly, he fails again. Your gaze darts between your washing clothes, and the little boy in the park.

After, he gets bored with trying to become an inadvertent astronaut, he takes out the box of sidewalk chalk he’d been carrying, and starts drawing little curlicues on the pavement next to the sprinkler.

He glances up at you, and you wave. You load the clothing into the dryer.

When you next look up, he sits next to a girl who can’t be any older than he is. She has long, reddish hair, and bright green eyes. They seem to be talking to each other, as far as you can tell. But the length of her sleeves and skirt, and their staid coloring, even in late-spring, send up red flags in your mind.

It’s not that you don’t mind him playing with whomever happens to be in the park, so long as they’re only children, but there are certain unspoken rules that he is too young to understand. Black people and Orthodox Jewish people rarely get along in Crown Heights.

You observe the body language between the two of them, the way it turns from curious to frustrated. Krishna’s talking, trying to introduce himself, but all the girl seems to be doing is staring at him without understanding, and occasionally shaking her head.

With her index finger, the girl points from the corner of her mouth to her ear, which confuses him even more. She keeps repeating the gesture, causing him to frown.

“Watch my clothes,” you tell one of your friends, in Kreyol.

You took classes in sign language in graduate school. It’s a useful skill to have.

“Are you hard of hearing?” you sign to the girl, who nods, and elaborates further, a smile beginning at the corners of her mouth.

 _“Mostly,”_ she replies.

Krishna stands there, rather confused, as you two conduct a conversation that he cannot understand. You turn back to him.

“She can’t hear you,” you say. “She’s telling you that she can’t hear very well.”

“Oh.” He scratches his head. “Not even a little?”

“It’s not polite to ask,” you tell him, shaking your head. “Talk a little slower, love. Make sure she can see your lips.”

“Okay, Miss Martineau.”

He has another idea.

He picks up his sidewalk chalk, and for a second, you wonder if he’ll go seek a playmate elsewhere. Instead, he kneels down on the ground in front of the young girl, and after a second’s thought, writes, “My name is Krishna.”

The girl reads the message over, smiles, and claps her hands once. He pushes the box of chalk over to her, and she selects one in light green. Then, beneath his sentence, in shaky cursive, she writes, “Yekaterina.”

Once Krishna lets her borrow his chalk, Yekaterina draws what should more accurately be called a mural on the ground. Reds, and greens, and blues, all swirled together in surreal configurations. She’s a real artist. It’s beautiful.

She’s halfway through sketching a bunch of cats when her parents call for her, casting wary looks in Krishna’s direction. Reluctantly, she walks away from you.

You shrug. C’est la vie.


	4. Mother (1990)

You and Krishna are watching Star Wars Episode: ???? for the umpteenth time, and speculating who Luke and Leia’s mother must be, if Darth Vader is their father. Personally, you hate this movie because of all the Ewoks, and would take death by guillotine sooner than watch it again.

As the credits roll, the conversation turns serious. After all this talk of parentage, it shouldn't surprise you.  

“Sometimes I wonder where my mother is,” Krishna tells you.

You shrug, and tuck your legs underneath you. You're tempted to reach out to him, but you resist the impulse.

“That’s understandable," you say. "Your father might be able to tell you something."

He nods, and turns his head to face you fully.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"When do you not?" you point out, a wry smirk in your face.

“Do you ever wonder about your mother?”

That one catches you unawares, leaving you all dry-mouthed and mind-blank. You need a few seconds to formulate something even halfway intelligent.

You school your expression into one of vague interest.

“Why do you ask?”

“I dunno,” he says. “I've never seen her around."

You've never been good at lying to Krishna, so you give him the closest thing to the truth you can manage.

“She's in the hospital. She got really sick.”

“Oh." He blinks. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

Later, almost late enough for him to be in bed, he confesses that when he was younger, he used to act as if you were his mother all the time.

"When people asked, that's what I told them."

The question flies out of your mouth before you can decide better of it.

“What about now, though?”

He thinks for a moment, glances at you, and glances back to the television. “I think you’re still my mother. You’re really good at it.”

“I bet you say that to all your mothers,” you joke.

Later that year, he makes you a Mother’s Day card, out of construction paper and tape, with a little handwritten poem inside. You tack it onto the bulletin board of your office. You plan to keep it for the rest of your life.


	5. Determination (1994 to 1995)

At fourteen, Krishna has officially earned the distinction of being a latchkey kid, but that does not stop him from showing up at your front door once or twice a week. You’re more than happy to have him around. He fills your home with activity that isn’t the sound of your sewing machine, and you don’t have to worry about him being home alone.

He shows you his grades, and you “ooh” and “aah” over them, even as you opine how thin he’s becoming from skipping dinner to do homework so frequently. You make sure he eats when he’s sitting at your dining room table.

“And on my report card, y’know, in the comment area, my English teacher put, ‘highly motivated and talented student.’”

You spoon rice and beans onto his plate. “Well, you’ve always been excellent at writing.”

And, after a few more months of high school, when he comes home, shirt untucked as always, with his mind blazing full of all sorts of “-isms” that he’s studied in the library, you listen raptly. The system is not broken, he tells you, at least not to the people running it. For them, all of this, this inequality, these intersections of oppression, are just part of the plan. Everything is the way it should be. Therefore, the only way to fix the system is to dismantle it, brick by brick if necessary.

“People need this to be brought to their attention! They need to be awoken from their complacency!” he cries. "Things can change, mama. Once the people see…” He pauses for air. “Once they see, they’ll realize the awful institutions we’ve been perpetuating! And then, maybe they’ll help put a stop to them.”

Big words for a freshman. He must have been supplementing his reading with the contents of your bookcase. 

You push the plate of food back toward him.

“Before you plan your glorious revolution, eat your dinner, would you? I promise the communists will wait up.”

You remember 1971 and marching down Third Avenue amongst a throng of protesters, with a picture of your dead brother in your hand: his high school graduation picture. The Vietnam war continued for four more years. All of it, all of your screaming, all of your lobbying, all of your pleading, all of you students gathered together, meant next to nothing.

You were little more than malcontents. 


	6. Disillusionment (1996)

You’re surprised when Ajay Vandayar calls on a Saturday afternoon you to say that his son hasn’t come out of his room in days. You’re partially surprised that he even has your new number, but even more shocked that Krishna - who has been swept up in some kind of revolutionary zeal for the longest time - has turned into a hermit.

Mr. Vandayar greets you with a tense smile.

“Hello, Dolores.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Vandayar.”

He points upstairs, to Krishna’s bedroom.

“I thought you might be able to talk to him. He trusts you.”

You put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, in an attempt to allay some of the concern etched onto his face.

“I’ll do my best.”

You knock on Krishna's door to no avail, for at least a minute straight. Then, guiltily, you open it without permission.

The lights have been switched off. Krishna sits on his bed, facing the window, looking out at nothing and no one in particular. His eyes seem blank, like marbles. 

You take the seat at the foot of his bed, and tap him gently on the ankle.

“What happened?”

"We watched a movie in AP World," he says in monotone.

"Okay, well." That explains nothing. "What movie did you watch, love?"

“ _Night and Fog."_  

“I see,” you respond gently.

You vaguely recall that  _Night and Fog_  was a film about the Holocaust that you had to see at some point in either high school or college. Heavy shit. 

“They took all these bodies, they took them, and they threw into mass graves as if they were just stones. And it just kept going. And going." Krishna begins to cry. "And I realized that this was a thing, that _really happened,_ Mama. There were people who  _did this,_ who had this _done_ to them. "

You switch on the light, take hold of his hand, and squeeze tightly. 

"I'm so sorry, Krishna."

You don't know what else to say. What can you say to him? Is there anything you can say to him? Can you point out that this happened fifty years ago? That such a thing will probably never happen again? The first statement is meaningless, and you don't really believe the last.  

He leans down and picks up a few books from the floor adjacent to his bed. 

“I’ve been reading too, you know.”

You aren't surprised. He's always been reading. Reading, and asking questions, his two main activities. He raises one of the books so you can see the title. You recognize the the cover, and its subject matter. Your stomach twists itself into knots.

Part of you wants to know who in their right mind would allow high school students to access media like this. But why should the truth be kept from them? Why should it be sanitized, swept under the rug, and lost? What purpose does that serve?

You wonder if other students in Krishna's class reacted this strongly. Certainly there must have been a few who walked out of the room slackjawed and sickened.

Nevertheless, when people witness something awful beyond comprehension, many tend to try to drown it out, to distract themselves, to forget.

Krishna did the opposite. Eternally inquisitive, eternally determined to know the truth, to see fully, to understand everything, he'd learned of one atrocity, and decided to study up on others.  He passes you the book, and you absentmindedly fiddle with the dust jacket. 

“Do you know about the Tuskegee experiment?” he asks. 

“Unfortunately.”

It had been a huge thing when you were in college, a major topic of discussion and dissection - the full story having only come out in the early 70s. All of you debated the details up and down, appalled that this had taken place so recently, but not surprised. Shock was a luxury you and those like you no longer possessed by then. 

“They gave black men syphilis to see what would happen, and just watched for years as they got sicker," he tells you, still struggling to process such an abhorrent concept. "Even when they figured out how to treat it, the doctors did nothing. They were _doctors._ "

"Yes, yes they were."

You're angry that you can't come up with something better than these repetitive responses. You're angry that any of it ever happened in the first place. You're angry that you can't alter time and make him forget the things he's read, just for a few more years. 

After he collects himself somewhat, slows down his breathing, he picks up the next book and shows it to you.  _And the Band Played On._

This is a novel you'd heard of, but never had the opportunity to read. 

He informs you that he read the whole thing, cover to cover. He lets it open to one of the earlier pages, and gestures to a passage. He keeps flipping through, pointing out paragraphs, and statistics, almost feverishly. 

“The CDC knew about it from the first cases, but no one else cared. Not the media, not the government, all because it was a _homosexual_ disease. Then an _immigrant_ disease. It only grew into a real crisis when it started hitting people who actually  _mattered_." His voice rises to a nearly hysterical waver. “This wasn't a hundred years ago. I was  _alive_ when this went on. It's barely even  _history!_ "

“It's awful, and I know, and I'm sorry."

You recall Elyse's poster in your old office. _Silence=Death._

“And there were more books, Mama,” he whispers.

You don't see them, though. The remainder the books on his floor are school textbooks.

Then you understand what he's trying to say, and your heart breaks, because he's completely right, and the only substantial thing you can offer him is the truth. You gaze at him, his bloodshot eyes, his unkempt hair, his downcast gaze. 

“There will always be more books," you tell him.

Krishna sits on his bed with his hands halfway outstretched, as if searching for something to hold onto. You wrap your arms around him, and let him cry himself out, rocking him back and forth, your chin on his shoulder. With one hand, you cradle the back of his head, as you listen to the sounds of his horrified despondency. Eventually, his sobbing subsides.

He pulls away slowly, and rests his head on your upper arm. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, and seems almost ashamed by his loss of control.

He takes the two novels, and puts them on his desk. Then, he sits back down on his bed, and turns to you, unable to quite you in the eye, clearly embarrassed.

“I’m sorry about all that, I was just…” 

“Overwhelmed?” you try. “You picked some heavy reading material, love. Shit, even I would have been in over my head."

When his mouth drops open wide enough to catch flies, you realize that's the first time you've truly cursed in his presence. You figure it's warranted.

You two sit in silence for a long time. You remember when he was terribly young, and he thought you knew absolutely everything, and the most tragic thing he’d ever seen was the time some hoodlum on Lorimer Street stole his bike. How faraway and dim those days seem right now.

“Do you think things can change for the better?" he finally asks you.

Honestly, you want to think they can. You want to believe that at some point, history will stop repeating itself, that something will give, and result in an era more hopeful than the one before it. Maybe not liberation, but at least a few wobbling baby steps.

Krishna blinks at you expectantly. 

There is no way to answer his question both innocuously and decisively. Say no, and you deepen his sorrow further. Say yes, and he returns to his dreams of revolution. You aim for the area in between. 

“I believe people can effect positive change, and I think it's a noble pursuit," you answer. "But it's important to be careful and cautious. Your safety is paramount." 

"Right, mama," he says, almost reflexively.

And because you do love him more than life, you regard him with just a hint of sternness. 

"When I say safe, I mean mentally just as much as physically," you say. "If seeing something is too much, look away. If a book overwhelms you, close it for a while. Take care of yourself first, then move onto the external."

"Okay."

You roll your eyes. You weren't born yesterday. You know the difference between the _"I understand and plan to actually heed your advice"_ version of "okay" and its vaguely related " _I get_   _it mom, you worry too much, calm down"_  cousin. At least he's feeling better, you reflect. That's something.

The next time you see him, as he sits at your dining room table, unpacking his books, you can't help but notice the message he's written on the back of his History notebook. You bring it up with him, curious as to what it is. 

"What's that?"

He grins. "Part of a poem by W. H. Auden. We went through the whole thing in English class."

You'll take his word for it.

At any rate, it's important enough to Krishna that he wrote it down in his neatest, most meticulous cursive. With his permission, you pull the notebook toward you, and read it over.

> _All I have is a voice_  
>  To undo the folded lie,   
> The romantic lie in the brain   
> Of the sensual man-in-the-street   
> And the lie of Authority   
> Whose buildings grope the sky:   
> There is no such thing as the State   
> And no one exists alone;   
> Hunger allows no choice   
> To the citizen or the police;   
> We must love one another or die.

He's underlined the last line twice. You both smile and shake your head at his sentimentality, and pass the notebook back to him. 

 


	7. Violets (1996)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> note: the title for this chapter comes from the super old tradition of women giving violets to the women they were involved with

A woman murmurs in the darkness, her voice simultaneously familiar and foreign. If you roll over toward the source, you can feel her hair against your hand, the shell of her ear against your mouth. A tenderness blossoms in your chest for the woman sleeping next to you.

You leave the light switched off. but she turns to face you, the bed springs creaking. Although you cannot see, you just know one of the straps of her cerulean camisole has migrated down to her upper arm. You fix it accordingly.

“Everything in its proper place,” she jokes lightly, sleepily. She cups your face in both of her hands and kisses one of your eyelids. You hold one of her hands against your cheek.

“Why would it not be?”

She throws an arm around your waist, and pulls you close, whispering lethargic nonsense into your ear. The stuff on the edge of dreaming.

Still, as one of the reigning champions of rumination, you can think of a dozen ways this relationship will crash and burn like the Hindenburg. As she’s confessed, she’s about as well-versed in fidelity as you are in disorder.

You really hope it doesn’t, though. You do like her.

So here you are, sleeping with her on a regular basis, a few months after she ate all the blueberry jolly ranchers in your office, bought you a box of chocolates, and asked you if you wanted to see a movie down in Times Square.

_(“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were avoiding me.” She quirked an eyebrow as if the idea of such a thing amused her, and swiped yet another one of your candies. The ones you reserved for students. “Are you afraid of me?”_

_Masae Sakamoto alone was about as fearsome as a coffee cup, unless you were one of the students in her Trig class. She was young and pretty and gregarious._

_You’d enjoyed the kiss you shared with her in Van Cortlandt Park. You enjoyed talking to her, and you found that mildly disconcerting, given her history. She had long since become known for chewing people up and spitting them out, for good reason._

_So while you weren’t avoiding her, you weren’t taking any pains to run into her._

_You finished inputting the last of the parental meeting data into the computer, and gazed up at her, unblinking._

_“Not in the least.”_

_“So, y’wanna go to the movies on Saturday night? I’ll pay.”_

_You switched off the computer, picked up your bag, and followed her up and out of the school._

_“You most definitely will not.”)_

You’re not quite in love with her, but you’re not quite not.

You have few pretenses. Unlike Krishna, you do not spend your free time watching romantic comedies. However, you do care about her, and if her suggestions that you stop worrying about things out of your control before you have a stroke are anything to go by, she cares about you too. Maybe.

Perhaps that’s sufficient. 

Only time will tell.

In the morning, when she is wearing nothing but her underwear, and assessing her reflection in the mirror, you trace the path of the blue Scorpio sign tattooed on her back - its lines, its curves, its dimensions - with one, gentle finger. 

She turns to you and smirks widely.

“You should get one to match.”

You roll your eyes.

“That isn’t quite my style.”

“Yeah, and your style is boring as hell.”

This argument again.


	8. Commencement (1998)

Aside from hemming and altering Krishna’s father’s dress pants so they’ll actually fit him properly, you have appointed yourself in charge of taking entirely too many pictures on the instant cameras you’ve brought to the ceremony. 

This is his high school graduation, an important milestone that needs to be preserved for all time.

You tell this to your on and off again girlfriend, who makes some wisecrack about you being in “total mom mode” today. Eventually, you’re forced to concede that she’s right.

“You  _could_ just take a bunch of pictures of me,” she suggests, much to your annoyance. “In all seriousness, though, make sure the flash is turned off, otherwise you’ll blind the students.”

She has a point, so you do.

But even if you’d planned to take a picture every minute, it’s almost impossible given all the crying you’re doing. 

He’s getting ready to go to college. He’s almost all grown up.

When you were a kid, you used to hate that point of family reunions, when relatives would come up to you and say, “Why, I remember when you were only  _this_ big.”

Now you understand it. Once upon a time, you used to carry Krishna on your hip effortlessly. Once upon a time, his greatest fear was merely the dark. Just look at him now. You stop crying. You wait for them to call his name, and beam.


	9. Orientations (1998)

CG: G99D EVENING  
GA: Yes?  
CG: I THINK I MIGHT HAVE A C9NFESSI9N T9 MAKE.  
CG: A69UT MY R99MMATE.  
GA: What Abo+ut Him?  
GA: Yo+u’ve Been Co+mplaining Abo+ut Him Since Mo+ve-In Day, And Yet So+meho+w Yo+u Have Beco+me Friends.  
CG: YES, WELL, I UM.  
CG: A FEW DAYS AG9 HE 6R9UGHT 9VER A BUNCH 9F GIRLS 9VER T9 CELE6RATE THE END 9F FINALS.  
GC: AND HE WAS D9ING, UM, STUFF WITH THEM.  
CG: LIKE, SEXUAL STUFF.  
GA: I So+rt O+f Figured That The First Time Yo+u Mentio+ned “Stuff.”  
GA: Are Yo+u Jealo+us O+f The Attentio+n He’s Been Getting?  
CG: N9T REALLY.  
CG: I’M JEAL9US 9F THE ATTENTI9N THE GIRLS WERE GETTING.  
CG: FR9M HIM.  
GA: I See.  
GA: Well, Ho+mo+sexuality Is A Reaso+nably Co+mmo+n Pheno+meno+n.  
GA: This Is Really No+thing To+ Wo+rry Abo+ut So+ Lo+ng As Yo+u Use Pro+tectio+n During Every Enco+unter, Hetero+sexual, o+r Ho+mosexual.  
GA: I Mean Yo+ur Feelings May Be Hurt Fo+r A While If Simo+n Is Straight, But There Are O+ther Men O+ut there.  
CG: 6UT Y9U D9NT UNDERSTAND  
CG: THAT GIRL FROM MY CLASSICS CLASS, THE TALL 9NE, Y9U MET HER  
GA: O+h, Her? I Remember Her. She Is A Very Nice Girl.  
CG: SHE AND I,  
CG: WE ARE S9RT 9F DATING.  
CG: I D9NT KN9W WHAT T9 D9 A69UT IT.  
CG: I THINK I HAVE FEELINGS F9R 69TH 9F THEM.   
GA: After Seeing Many Relatio+nships Crash And Burn Because O+f Deception, I Suggest Yo+u Make Them Bo+th Aware O+f What’s Go+ing O+n Tactfully And Ho+nestly.  
GA: It’ll Be The Best Co+urse O+f Actio+n In The Lo+ng Run.  
CG: 9KAY.  
CG: I CAN TRY THAT, I GUESS.  
CG: THANK Y9U.  
GA: Yo+u’re Quite Welco+me.  
CG: D9NT TELL MY FATHER, PLEASE.  
GA: I Wo+uld Never.


	10. Dissidence (1999)

You attend the demonstration protesting the mishandling of Amadou Diallo’s death solely because Krishna asked you to. You would never leave him out in the cold, particularly for an event like this. You want, no, need, to keep an eye on him.

And of course, out of all the students present, he would be the brazen one with the megaphone, leading chants of, “no justice, no peace!”

Clearly your warnings of “be careful” fell on deaf ears. The bitter winter wind whips around you, even through your coat, and you shiver while you watch him, as you witness this child clamor for change. You’re not in the crowd, but you can see him standing atop a few packing crates, his fingers going an angry, cherry shade of red on the megaphone.

He forgot to wear gloves. Idly, you wonder if he remembered to tuck his shirt in for once. After a good fifteen minutes of shouting, Krishna finally lowers his voice.

“I am afraid to die,” he confesses to everyone. “I’m scared that I’ll pull out my calculator, a police officer will mistake it for a gun, and then I’ll become just another statistic. A chalk outline on the street.”

More clamoring from the crowd.

“I don’t want to live in a world of constant fear!” he shouts.

When the throngs of students turn from angry to riotous, actively pushing against the NYPD, of course the first person the cops apprehend is Krishna. They pull him off his makeshift podium, and then you can see him no more, not through all the people blocking your view.

If you have to kick, punch, and bite your way through the crowd, you will.

“That’s my son!” you scream, shoving people aside, slipping in the ice, desperate to get to him. Your heart pounds in your ears, a jackhammer tempo to accompany your panic, all propriety forgotten. “Get the fuck out of my way!”

 _Please, no. Oh, please, no._ You kick what may or may not be a journalist out of your path, not like you give a fuck, and sprint to the front, just in time to see Krishna, bleeding profusely, handcuffed against a police car.

You wish you could just incapacitate all these navy blue wearing thugs. Beat them insensate with their nightsticks and see how they enjoy it. 

Krishna has committed no crime. He does not deserve this. 

You reach over to dab at his head with your sleeve. Through his good eye, he blinks at you with something like relief.

Then, one of the officers, clad in riot gear, shoves you back toward the crowd, with much effort. 

“This doesn’t involve you,” he insists, holding you at arm’s length away from the car. “Move along.”

“That’s my son there! He hasn’t done anything! Please, I beg you.”

“Ma’am, if you continue to resist, I may be forced to detain you.”

You do your damndest to hold your temper. Still, You have a half mind to spit in the officer’s face, to backhand him square across the block with your handbag. You could, too.

If it would free Krishna, you’d do anything. 

But before you can get yourself arrested, someone you recognize as Krishna’s girlfriend, and a Latina girl you’ve never met, through equal parts pleading and logic, somehow convince the officers to let Krishna go with a warning. 

He did not start the near-riot as Krishna’s girlfriend reminds them. The Latina girl points out that school public safety gave them permission to hold the demonstration in the first place, and that if anyone should be prosecuted, it should be the people who turned the demonstration violent. The fact that her father is a cop also seems to hold a certain amount of weight.

Once the police uncuff Krishna, and let him free, he stumbles over to you, eyes wide as saucers.

You’ve seen enough people get beaten up to know the look, but nothing appears to be broken, just a lot of bruises, a nasty gash, and a snapped tooth.

“Better get him to Simon’s,” the Latina girl says. “We can walk there from here, and that idiot has a car.”

“M’sorry,” Krishna tells you. "It hurts, ma."

Lost for words, you only shake your head. You take off your coat, and use it to wipe some of the blood off Krishna's face. The four of you walk in silence back to Simon’s building.

Since you don’t feel like signing in as a visitor at the security desk, you decide to wait outside the dorm for Krishna, Simon, and the girls to come back down, but the only two who emerge are Krishna and the Latina girl, who has a set of keys in her hand.

“Si’s pissed as hell, as usual, Cat’s trying to calm him down, and while they were arguing, I stole Si’s keys, so I guess you and I are driving him to the medical center,” she explains, throwing you the keys. “You drive, okay?”

More than okay.

During the ride, you learn that the other girl’s name is Marisol, she is a seventeen year old freshman, she is visually impaired, and she’s never been involved in anything like this before, let alone gotten covered in her friend’s blood. 

You feel a little sorry for her, just because she seems so terrified. You feel even sorrier for Krishna, as he holds the gauze to his mouth to stop the bleeding.


	11. Concern (1999)

Perhaps what Masae said once was true.

Maybe you do spend too much time worrying about Krishna. He is twenty years old, after all. To be fair, you might worry less if he would stop trying to right all the wrongs of the world armed with nothing but a megaphone. You might worry less if he weren’t in college, and too far away for you to help him should trouble arise.

In the ways that matter, you are his mother, the woman who raised him for much of his life. 

You have only wanted the best for him. You have only wanted him to be happy. After he spent so much of his life keeping to himself, and keeping to his books, you have only wanted him to find people with which he could identify.

And he found them. 

Whenever she comes to your place, Masae pokes fun at the fact that you’ve hung so many pictures of them on one of the walls, but why shouldn’t you?

They come over often enough. They spend their weekends on your floor and couch as opposed to in their dorm rooms. Simon with his interesting eyes and even more interesting things to say, Yekaterina with her watercolors and books of poetry, Marisol with her red shades and her sarcasm, and of course, Krishna. Your Krishna. Never have you seen him more at ease than when those three surround him.

Look at these kids, you think to yourself. Of course, legally speaking, they’re not kids, but they’re all so young compared to you.

You asked God for one child and somehow ended up with four. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. Like the song you and your older brother used to hear on the radio. Absentmindedly, wistfully, you hum the tune.

 _(Remember me to one who lives there,_  
_she once was a true love of mine.)_

You’re happy Krishna has them. You’re happy they have Krishna. He insists to you that they’re only friends of his, that he was confused when he sent you that message a year or two ago, but that's not the whole story, you can sense it.

You know intimacy when you see it. Simon’s arm is seldom not around Krishna’s shoulders, and as for Yekaterina? Cat fits among and between them like the missing pieces of a puzzle, smoothing out the pauses in their conversations effortlessly. You can't definitively say what these three are to each other, but whatever it is runs deep. 

Marisol sits beside Cat, gaze flicking between each of her friends, maybe to keep the peace if necessary.

“You kicked over my glass of wine, Mari!” Simon shouts. “You did that shit on purpose!”

“Sorry,” she replies, a toothy grin on her face. “Didn’t see it there.”

Or maybe not.

No matter what, though, you hope adulthood is kind to each of them. They deserve that much. 


	12. Undefined (2000)

When you were ten, you thought love was a matter of fact. The way your father always slipped you a few pieces of change to buy candy on your way home from school. The way your older brother carried you to the hospital after you fell out of a tree and broke your leg. The way your mother kissed you on the forehead each morning.

Now, you are nearly forty-four, and while you’ve found love across the intervening decades, you still cannot define it. 

You picture the concentration on Masae’s face as she teaches her calculus classes. You picture the moments when your students get into their dream schools, and dash into your office yelling "Ms. Martineau, guess what!" You picture the quartet of college students snoring on your living room floor. You picture your father’s pipe, the lilt of your mother’s laughter, the way your younger siblings danced during the West Indian Day Parade, and the sound of your older brother’s voice. You think of the very first time Krishna ever called you Mama.

You wipe your eyes, and smile.


End file.
